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John Cage recital set to last 639 years recently witnessed a chord change

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218 points pseudolus | 5 comments | 31 Mar 25 15:10 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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gweinberg ◴[03 Apr 25 16:15 UTC] No.43571891[source]▶
It doesn't make sense to me that the piece should start with a 17 month rest. Surely it doesn't really start until the first note is played?
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ssttoo ◴[03 Apr 25 16:39 UTC] No.43572227[source]▶
Beethoven’s 5th symphony (da-da-da-DAA) starts with a rest too, it’s not unusual to notate like this. Many pieces have “pickup” measures which are not complete and much shorter than a full measure. But when the pickup is more than 50% of a normal measure, it’s no longer much of a pickup and starting with a rest to make up the complete measure makes sense.
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bigstrat2003 ◴[03 Apr 25 16:46 UTC] No.43572331[source]▶
That's all fine and dandy when you're talking about a genuine piece of music. But for something like this, counting a rest that goes for 17 years is taking it way too far.
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robin_reala ◴[03 Apr 25 16:55 UTC] No.43572452[source]▶
17 months. But in what sense isn’t this a genuine peice of music? It certainly meets Merriam-Webster’s definition:

a: vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony

b: the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity

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1. lmm ◴[04 Apr 25 01:24 UTC] No.43577391[source]▶
Does it in fact have rhythm, melody, harmony, unity, or continuity? If it's too slow for any human to actually observe those qualities in it then I'd argue that it does not.
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2. robin_reala ◴[04 Apr 25 04:35 UTC] No.43578356[source]▶
It’s playing a chord, so harmony exists by definition. It also has 600 years of continuity planned in.
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3. cwillu ◴[04 Apr 25 05:30 UTC] No.43578649[source]▶
And if a tree falls in a forest with no one to hear it, it makes a sound by definition.

…and yet that answer entirely misses the point that the question is about the choice of definition.

4. kelnos ◴[04 Apr 25 07:01 UTC] No.43579137[source]▶
Do photons and electrons not exist, because we cannot observe them directly?

You can certainly play a recording of the piece at whatever speed you desire, and decide if it has rhythm, melody, harmony, unity, and continuity. Extremely slowing the piece down does not remove those things.

5. dagw ◴[04 Apr 25 15:25 UTC] No.43583798[source]▶
Are you talking about the composition or this particular performance of that composition. This performance may be too slow for any human to actually observe, but the composition is just a piece of sheet music you can read and judge like any other composition. This is far from the first performance of this piece, it's just that most other performances have been in the 20 minute to 20 hour range.